Australia, Dec. 26 -- New South Wales Land and Environment Court issued text of the following judgement on Dec. 13:

1. COMMISSIONER: This is a Class 1 Development Appeal pursuant to s 8.7 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (EPA Act) being an appeal against the refusal of Development Application No. X/1040/2023 seeking consent for the removal of trees, demolition of a garage, additions and alterations to existing dwelling, construction of an attached dual occupancy, and a one into two lot subdivision resulting in one dwelling on each lot of land (Proposed Development) at 15 Edwin Lane, Katoomba (the Site).

2. The Court arranged a conciliation conference under s 34(1) of the Land and Environment Court Act 1979 (LEC Act) between the parties, which has been held on 17 October 2024 and adjourned to 22 November 2024 by which time the parties filed an agreement pursuant to s 34 of the LEC Act. I presided over the conciliation conference.

3. Since the s 34 conference, the Applicant has sought to amend the Proposed Development as follows:

1) Amended architectural plans which delete built form over the existing stormwater culvert and convert the dual occupancy into a detached rather than attached dual occupancy (with consequential amendments to the design of the exterior and interior of the proposed new dwelling);

2) Amended BASIX Certificate;

3) Clause 4.6 Variation Request seeking to justify the contravention of the minimum lot size development standard in cl 4.1B of the Blue Mountains Local Environmental Plan 2015 (BMLEP);

4) Statement of Heritage Impact.

4. The parties are satisfied that the amended development application satisfactorily addresses the Respondent's contentions in the Statement of Facts and Contentions filed 5 July 2024, subject to the agreed conditions.

5. At the conciliation conference, the parties reached agreement as to the terms of a decision in the proceedings that would be acceptable to the parties. This decision involved the Court upholding the appeal and granting development consent to the development application subject to conditions.

6. Under s 34(3) of the LEC Act, I must dispose of the proceedings in accordance with the parties' decision if the parties' decision is a decision that the Court could have made in the proper exercise of its functions. In making the orders to give effect to the agreement between the parties, I was not required to, and have not, made any merit assessment of the issues that were originally in dispute between the parties.

7. The parties' decision involves the Court exercising the function under s 4.16 of the EPA Act to grant consent to the development application.

8. There are jurisdictional prerequisites that must be satisfied before this function can be exercised. The parties identified the jurisdictional prerequisites of relevance in these proceedings to be the terms of cl 4.6 of the BMLEP to vary a development standard. The parties explained how the jurisdictional prerequisites have been satisfied in an agreed jurisdictional note.

9. The Applicant is the owner of the Site and has provided her written consent to the lodgment of the development application (Tab 1 of Class 1 Application), as required by s 23(1) of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulation 2021.

10. No submissions were received by the Respondent following notification in accordance with the Blue Mountains Community Participation Plan 2021 to surrounding properties of:

1) the Proposed Development for a period of 14 days from 8 September 2023 until 22 September 2023; and

2) the amended application as detailed at [3] from 28 October 2024.

*Rest of the document can be viewed at: (https://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/decision/193b42cb5d3a1342567571ff)

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